According to an internal DHS memo acquired by the Post, the government is expanding the number of detention beds by 33,000, including some for “unaccompanied minors,” in other words, children held in prison.

The memo also explains that “progress” has been made and that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is “taking all appropriate action to immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall” along the border. One contractor proposed to build a wall with a moat filled with nuclear waste that immigrants would fall into if they attempted to cross.

To combat widespread hostility to immigration raids, DHS will engage in propaganda to “further improve brand awareness and convey the importance and scope of our mission within the public sphere.” To do so, DHS is targeting young people: “We will also continue to focus on increasing our digital and social media presence to reach the millennial generation; [and] expand our outreach at high schools, colleges and universities.”

The new memo comes after DHS announced it has hired two fascistic white nationalists, John Feere of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and Julie Kirchner of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), to serve as policy advisers to ICE and CBP, respectfully. The fact that CIS and FAIR are now helping direct the government’s immigration policy is a warning of even more brutal treatment to come.

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Trump administration is also seeking to eliminate even the minimal requirements for services at immigrant detention centers. The administration is considering dropping translation services for immigrants, eliminating rules that detainee requests for medical attention be granted within 24 hours, and closing a bureau responsible for overseeing conditions for protecting immigrant women from sexual assault.

Immigrant detention centers are already hellish places, often located in isolated areas, where immigrants are fed rotten food, barred from seeing their attorneys, and housed with violent non-immigrant criminals. Many immigrants are housed in county jails. One Ohio police sheriff told the Times, “Jail is jail … we don’t put chocolates on the pillows.”

Private prisons house roughly 65 percent of detained immigrants, and this figure is likely to rise when the new expansion is carried out. The Democratic and Republican parties established a “detention bed quota” whereby the government is required to fill prisons with immigrants, producing windfall profits for privately-run facilities whose corporate executives donate heavily to both parties.

…

Widespread demonstrations have taken place against Trump’s immigration policies, and polls show large majorities oppose the construction of a border wall. Ninety percent of Americans support granting citizenship to immigrants who have lived in the US for several years. Last week, roughly 30,000 people demonstrated in Dallas, Texas to defend the rights of immigrants.

A hunger strike of immigrant detainees in Tacoma, Washington nearly doubled in size yesterday as the number of participants rose to 750 inmates, half the capacity of the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC). The first strikers have now gone three days without food.

Immigrants are protesting horrendous conditions at the facility. They are demanding better food, better medical care, regular cleaning of prison clothes, an increase in the amount of recreation time, the establishment of education programs and anti-depression programs, an increase in pay for prison labor, and a decrease in price gauging at the prison store.

At present, immigrants at NWDC and at many locations around the country receive only one hour of outdoor recreation per day, despite the fact that many detainees have never been convicted with any criminal offense. Depression is rampant and abuse at the hands of brutal prison guards is widespread. Roughly 170 people have died in immigration custody since 2003. Immigrants at the facility make $1 per day for prison labor.

The hunger strike marks a resurgence of protest by immigrant detainees. In 2014, 1,200 immigrants were on hunger strike at facilities across the country, including at NWDC. That year, protesters outside NWDC blocked deportation buses from entering or leaving the facility. Hunger strikes of women detainees broke out in April 2014 at the Karnes County Family Detention Center in Texas, and 500 more women went on a hunger strike at the T. Don Hutto facility in Texas. Similar protests have taken place in California, Louisiana, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Colorado.

Jonathan Rodriguez Guzman, a young hunger striker at NWDC, told the press the strike is “for everybody out there” and that “what we want is for people to hear us out” on deplorable conditions in the facility.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Rose Richeson tried to downplay the strike in an interview with Reuters: “Right now it’s more of a meal refusal thing that some detainees have done.”

NWDC is a privately run, for-profit detention center owned by GEO Group, a corporation whose CEO donated $250,000 to fund Donald Trump’s January inauguration celebration. GEO Group’s stock has doubled from $23 per share on Election Day to $48 at yesterday’s closing bell.

The corporation has further reason to celebrate. A memo released by the Washington Post yesterday shows the Department of Homeland Security will be expanding the number of detention spots by 33,000 in the near future.

The company announced that ICE awarded it a $110 million contract to operate a 1,000 bed detention center in Conroe, Texas. According to Yahoo Finance, the project is expected to generate $44 million in revenue each year.

“We are very appreciative of the continued confidence placed in our company by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said George C. Zoley, GEO Group’s CEO. “We are pleased to have been able to build on our longstanding partnership with ICE to help the agency meet its need for detention beds.”

GEO Group makes vast profits from human misery and oppression, operating 143 prisons worldwide, jailing up to 100,000 people every day.

In March, the company announced a public stock offering of 6,000,000 shares at $41.75 per share, which would bring in $250 million. According to a Berkshire Hathaway report from March 8, “JP Morgan, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Barclays, and BofA Merrill Lynch are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.”

The government pays GEO Group roughly $150 per day for each prisoner. Yesterday, dozens of protesters gathered outside of the GEO Group facility in Tacoma and demanded the release of their family members.

Augustino Lucas, a 15-year-old, told the Stranger that his father, Francisco, is among those currently detained. “Everything changed” when ICE officials took his father.

Ashlee, a 12-year-old, explained that her father was also detained at the facility, where guards denied him medical attention. “My dad was hard-working,” she said. “He would always make me laugh and smile.”

Maru Mora Villalpando, an organizer with the protest group NWDC Resistance, told the Stranger: “If anybody is asking themselves if we need this place, whether we should deport people or detain people this way, they should take a look at themselves and their humanity. Because maybe they lost it.”

This 14 April 2017 video from the USA is called 700 Immigrants On Hunger Strike at For-Profit Prison to Protest Conditions & $1/Day Wages.

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court voted 9-0 to allow portions of President Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban to go into effect. Seventy-two years after the Supreme Court’s infamous 1944 Korematsu decision upholding internment camps, curfews and military exclusion orders targeting people of Japanese ancestry, the court is once again authorizing state discrimination based on nationality: here.

Like this:

Afghans Respond to Insult of U.S. Dropping Massive Bomb: “Would a Mother Do That to Any Children?”

14 April 2017

The “Mother of All Bombs” is the nickname for the bomb the U.S. dropped Thursday on Afghanistan, but our guests in Kabul say civilians there are asking if any mother would conduct such an attack.

Basir Bita is a mentor with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, and Dr. Hakim is a medical doctor who has provided humanitarian relief in Afghanistan for over a decade. He works with Afghan Peace Volunteers, an inter-ethnic group of young Afghans dedicated to building nonviolent alternatives to war. We are also joined by Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, who is just back from Afghanistan, and Wazhmah Osman, professor of media and communication at Temple University and member of the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association.

The weapon, officially known as the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, designated by the Pentagon as MOAB, or “mother of all bombs,” detonates nearly 20,000 pounds of explosives in mid-air, igniting the atmosphere and creating a massive concussion that obliterates everything within a radius of 1,000 yards. Its shock waves are capable of killing people within a radius of up to 1.7 miles. The impact of the explosion is the equivalent of a nuclear weapon for those caught in the target zone.

NBC News in the United States led its evening news on April 13 with an “exclusive” report that the Trump administration is prepared to carry out a “preemptive strike with conventional weapons” if it believes North Korea is about to conduct another nuclear weapons test: here.

Australia: Amid a media barrage to try to drum up public support for US-led military attacks on Syria and North Korea, the corporate media and the Turnbull government have launched an extraordinary vilification campaign against academics seeking to expose the lies behind last week’s US cruise missile strike on Syria: here.

European eels (Anguilla anguilla) mate and lay eggs in the salty waters of the Sargasso Sea, a seaweed-rich region in the North Atlantic Ocean. But the fish spend most of their adult lives living in freshwater rivers and estuaries in Europe and North Africa.

The critters are hard to track. “They’re elusive,” says study coauthor Lewis Naisbett-Jones, a biologist now at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “They migrate at night and at depth. The only reason we know they spawn in the Sargasso Sea is because that’s where the smallest larvae have been collected.”

Some other marine animals, like sea turtles and salmon, tune in to subtle changes in Earth’s magnetic field to help them migrate long distances. To test whether eels might have the same ability, Putman and his colleagues placed young European eels in a 3,000-liter tank of saltwater surrounded by copper wires. Running electric current through the wires simulated the magnetic field experienced at different places on Earth.

With no electric current, the eels didn’t swim in any particular direction. But when the magnetic field matched what eels would experience in the Sargasso Sea, the fish mostly swam to the southwest corner of their tank. That suggests the eels might use the magnetic field as a guide to help them move in a specific direction to leave their spawning grounds.

Swimming southwest from the Sargasso Sea seems counterintuitive for an eel trying to ultimately go northeast, Putman says. But computer simulations revealed that that particular bearing would push eels into the Gulf Stream, whisking them off to Europe. Catching a more circuitous ride on a current is probably more efficient for the eels than swimming directly across the North Atlantic, says Putman.

Magnetic fields could help eels stay the course, too. A magnetic field corresponding to a spot in the North Atlantic further along the eels’ route to Europe sent the eels in the tank heading northeast. That’s the direction they’d need to go to keep following the Gulf Stream to Europe.

The researchers did see a fair amount of variation in how strongly individual eels responded to magnetic fields. But that makes sense, says Julian Dodson, a biologist at Laval University in Quebec City who wasn’t part of the study. The Gulf Stream is such a powerful current that the eels could wriggle in a spread of directions to get swept up in its flow.

Now, the researchers are looking at whether adult eels use a similar magnetic map to get back to the Sargasso Sea. Adults follow a meandering return route that might take more than a year to complete, previous research suggests (SN Online: 10/5/16). But whether there’s some underlying force that guides them remains to be seen.

THE CLASH‘S incendiary eponymous debut album of 40 years ago was a landmark in the history of punk. It channelled energy and anger into 14 surging up-tempo numbers but added depth with reggae influences and cogent social commentary.

Anti-establishment, and with a steadfast socialist message, it offered a positive message for the youth of Britain. Fittingly, this commemorative night begins with a superb film of Syd Sheldon’s iconic images of the band and Rock Against Racism, all perfectly showcased to Steel Pulse’s classic, bass heavy Jah Pinkney-R.A.R.

Poets from the Picket Line are in the audience and give authentic and powerful spoken-word pieces and the talented Lone Groover pays homage to his mentors with a specially commissioned song 77 in 2017.

A panel discussion with nine authors and activists, including ex-Clash manager Caroline Coon, reflect on punk not only as a reaction to the period but also to hippy culture. It was the influence of artists like Woody Guthrie that enabled Joe Strummer to capture the anger of the zeitgeist, shaking up the music industry as well channeling his frustration about the plight of young people and the need to give hope.

Feminist activist Janey, lead singer with Dream Nails makes it clear though that the night is no “fossilisation” but a celebration using the past to inspire hope in people today. As a DIY artist she encourages everyone to “do and make the things you wanna see, get involved in a band, in politics and union organising. It is all interconnected and not just about music.”

Attila the Stockbroker, clearly loving the event, stands at the front of the audience dancing and singing along as if still the young punk artist he was starting out nearly 40 years ago. His tribute to Strummer, Commandante Joe is heartfelt, Farageland bitterly scathing, Bob Crow moving and My Doctor Martens draws smiles.

48 Thrills, a passionate punk-rock jukebox tribute band, feature Steve North from the acclaimed stage play Meeting Joe Strummer. Fuelled by a passion for the band, they play the first side of the Clash’s album in its entirety with the same unadulterated rage and fury.

Though the cliche about punk rock is that the bands couldn’t play, the Clash only gave that illusion and, like them, 48 Thrills play hard. The charging, relentless rhythms give the songs a vital energy and North’s slurred wails perfectly complement Joe Williams edgy, anthemic guitar breaks.

Every song, especially White Riot, has the crowd singing as if it was the original. After a storming London’s Burning they encore with Complete Control.

Original rude boy Comrade X lashes up the Westway to This Land is Your Land before blasting out a rousing rendition of Jarama Valley, then it’s back to side two of the Clash album with Sean Mcgowan, a brilliant young talent. He has experience today of being on the dole and zero hours contracts and makes Career Opportunities his very own.

Nia Wyn takes us back to 1977 via the Deep South. An amazing singer, her superb resonator guitar silences a crowd transfixed by her power as she performs Cheat.

Joe Solo, Scarborough’s very own Joe Strummer and a huge Clash fan, celebrates not only their 40th but also the fourth anniversary of the death of Margaret Thatcher. Updating Protex Blue, he gives an intense and charismatic performance that goes down a storm.

The thing that set the Clash apart was their joy of reggae and the standout achievement on the record was their six-minute cover of Junior Murvin‘s Police and Thieves and this brilliant reworking of a reggae classic gave the first indication that they would push the boundaries of rock and roll itself. Captain Ska do it more than justice before Emily Harrison gives a perfect spoken word version of 48 Hours.

This music video from Britain says about itself:

Dream Nails – “DIY” [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

20 March 2017

“DIY” is about being self-sufficient as a woman under capitalist patriarchy. It’s about creating the world that you want.

The Bob Oram article continues:

Dream Nails, one of the most exciting young bands around, make a perfect connection as they play their anthem DIY before the final Clash song Garageland.

The closer on the album, it was written after Charles Shaar Murray’s review of the Clash’s early appearance at the Sex Pistols Screen on the Green concert: “The Clash are the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately, preferably with the engine running,” he pontificated. A legendary mistake, on a par with Decca Records’ classic comment on the Beatles: “We don’t like their sound and guitar music is on the way out.”

Bouncing around the stage exuberantly, they are the female modern-day garageband heir to the Clash and end by mixing up a spicy hex for the US President: “Sriracha on your dick, Sriracha on your balls.” Deep Heat is a brilliantly catchy tune inspired by his election.

The brilliant Captain Ska return to the stage and have the packed crowd dancing straight off. Slipping Back in Time is glorious. Ska beats and a mournful horn punctuate this take on how neoliberalism and austerity are taking us back to the late 1970s.

Red Arrows, eat your hearts out and vacate the skies for the starling marvel of murmurations is about and has wholly bewitched thousands – including PETER FROST

ISN’T it nice that the evenings are at last starting to get lighter? Since the clocks sprang forward an hour a week or two ago, I’ve been out in the evenings enjoying the blossom, the spring flowers and that wonderful, low-sinking sun that shows the countryside in the best light.

The low evening sun had thrown the old medieval ridge and furrow field patterns into bold relief. But it was what was happening in the sky above that took my breath away. What I saw was one of the most remarkable phenomena in the entire animal kingdom. It is called a murmuration.

A murmuration is the delightful term used to describe a huge flock of starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) all swooping, looping and diving in unison. The birds made incredible patterns in the sky as they performed their tightly packed aerial ballet. It’s completely breathtaking to witness.

Murmurations can involve many hundreds of birds or even many thousands. Some of the biggest of these flight displays have been known to include over a million birds.

The starlings perform these amazing airborne spectaculars for many reasons. Grouping together offers safety in numbers — predator birds of prey such as kestrels, sparrowhawks, peregrine falcons, buzzards and other raptors find it hard to target one bird in the middle of a hypnotising flock of thousands.

Starlings form the murmurations as they gather over their roosting site — and perform their wheeling stunts before they roost for the night. They like to gather in large roosts to keep warm and to exchange information, such as good feeding areas.

Smaller than blackbirds, with a short tail, pointed head and triangular wings, starlings appear black at a distance but when seen closer they are glossy with a sheen of purples and greens.

Their flight is fast and direct and they walk and run confidently on the ground. It is one of our commonest garden birds having a love-hate relationship with gardeners.

It consumes many garden insect pests but can also ruin fruit harvests picking at buds and stealing ripe soft fruit. Most starlings are residents, and most never leave us.

However, this number almost doubles every winter with the arrival of thousands more birds from Europe. Nigel Farage must be doing his nut as the birds wheel and turn triumphantly over Kent after crossing the channel to complete their journey.

These migrations account for the huge increase in the starling population which occurs when birds from northern Europe arrive to spend the winter in Britain because the weather is relatively mild here and food and shelter are easier to find.

They begin to arrive during September but the majority of starlings will arrive in October, before our winter weather really sets in. Most of the birds coming to Britain are from Scandinavia but one individual, caught in Bedfordshire, had been ringed the previous spring in Lithuania, over a thousand miles away.

Despite the incredible size of today’s flocks, starling numbers are just a fraction of what they used to be. Huge starling flocks used to gather over industrial cities like Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast.

Today, you have a much better chance of seeing the birds and their spectacular mumurations over rural areas.

For the last few years huge flocks have attracted a great deal of attention at Gretna Green. The police had to control the traffic as people flock to see the amazing spectacle.

Likewise tens of thousands of starlings can be seen swirling above Brighton’s beaches and piers each late autumn.

Despite the evidence of these huge flocks, the starling population has fallen by over 80 per cent in recent years, meaning its decline has put it on the critical Red List of British birds most at risk.

As with so many other species, the decline is believed to be due to the loss of permanent pasture, modern farming practices and increased use of farm chemicals. A shortage of food and nesting sites in many parts of Britain also play their part in the decline.

Starlings have an amazing ability to change their internal organs throughout the year as food supplies alter. During the breeding season, starlings rely on invertebrates, especially the larvae of crane flies, a real garden pest known as leatherjackets.

They harvest them from short grassland and meadow. Gardeners love the bird when it clears garden lawns of leatherjackets. In the summer and autumn, they take more seeds and berries including soft fruit from suburban gardens and that isn’t so popular with those same gardeners.

This seasonal shift in diet is matched by a lengthening of their intestine to cope with the increased plant material, which is harder to digest.

Starlings will readily use bird tables and feeders throughout the year. In fact, quite a few garden birdwatchers complain about starlings because they seem to clean out a feeding station in minutes.

Very occasionally you may spot a white, or albino, starling. Beautiful birds, but sadly they don’t usually last too long as their colour makes them easy targets for birds of prey.

This albino starling can often be confused with a very rare visitor to Britain, the rosy starling (Pastor roseus). Sometimes known as the pink starling, one has been causing much excitement among birdwatchers and photographers in the last week or so by taking up residence in Crawley.

London twitchers have been out in force to see the pink and black bird that has made the 5,500 mile journey from its winter home in India and Sri Lanka.